A huge prize fund of $2.55m, an inspirational venue at one of Russia's finest museums, and a massive, global, internet audience, all failed to spark creativity and a fighting approach. India's Vishy Anand kept his world crown in Moscow this week when his Israeli challenger Boris Gelfand, who had tied the regular games 6-6, lost 1.5-2.5 in one-hour rapid tie-breaks.

As numerous blogs and internet forums showed, chess fans were disappointed at the many short draws, averaging under 30 moves, in the main match. Some grandmasters took a more positive view, notably the world No2 Levon Aronian who twittered "Wow!" at the triple pawn offers in game 12.

Gelfand missed a simple win in the third tie-break game and had chances to convert favourable positions. His weakness which let Anand off the hook was his poor time management in the tie-breaks, where Anand took the lead after his opponent was down to a few seconds a move for much of the game.

There are two ways of looking at Anand's performance. Positively, he has now repulsed three different challengers, a feat equalled by Garry Kasparov but unsurpassed since Emanuel Lasker a century ago. Negatively, his cautious approach and reliance on home-brewed opening novelties was in sharp contrast to the inventive flair of his previous title defences against Vlad Kramnik and Veselin Topalov.

Anand will have to face a new challenger in November 2013, the winner of the eight-player candidates tournament to be played in London next March. There Aronian and Norway's world No1 Magnus Carlsen will be the favourites and on current form the champion will struggle against either of them. Anand's fans hoped that his poor recent tournament results meant that he was conserving strength for the match in Moscow but his play lacked energy and even at the board he often looked worried as if the ideas would not come.

Gelfand emerged with great credit in defeat and an enhanced reputation. The Israeli was a rank outsider in the betting but came prepared to the hilt, showed fine technical skills and scored the best win of the match in game seven. Given the positions he achieved, maybe in the final analysis he did not believe enough that he could become a first-time world champion at age 43.

Before the match he had said that his approach would be to avoid tactical battles as they were Anand's strength but in game eight he ignored his own advice and suffered the shortest loss in world championship history, 17 moves (see last week's column).